by the Carpenter
If you have been following us, by now you know and have seen some changes around here. The Artist has been working for months on our new and very improved website.
I must say what she accomplished is incredible. I think she has explained some over the last few months what she has been doing, but I want to emphasize to the non-tech type out here what that means. She spent hours upon hours teaching herself how to build the site with the help of the web host company called Squarespace.
Our previous host, Modern CRM, is a true web builder. He knows the “Code” as the Artist says. Our old site was 100% dependent on him if we wanted to make significant design changes, or fix technical glitches like our contact page suddenly not working. As often as the Artist likes to change things up, and have more control, we needed to find a way that did not take his time anymore.
So entered Squarespace. A website host company that specializes in do-it-yourself site building– a so called "plug and play" system meaning they have lots and lots of templates to use, and lots and lots of instructions and videos on how to build a site. You pick a basic design and build from that. With the help of their tech team, and the Artist’s "stick-to-it-tivness," I think she came up with a site that looks every bit as good as a high end web designer could have done at a fraction of the cost. We just pay a annual fee for them to host the site.
With the new site host, we also went to a new email host. Our email addresses have not changed, just the company that handles the email– I think they are called our "server". That was for me to figure out. We had to re-configure all our devices for the new server. It took several phone calls to the tech team and many hours of trying and re-trying, but we finally got it. If you had tried to send an email to us about a week and a half ago, you may have gotten a bounce back. We were off-line as they say for a day and a half, but all seems to be working fine now.
On the home build front… more new jobs keep coming our way. This looks like the summer of smaller jobs. We are not bidding on any big additions or projects right now. Just several smaller projects. We just completed the design process for a kitchen remodel that we will be into in about three weeks, finishing up two bath remodels, a porch repair, and you probably saw our loft project. That was fun and fast. Its good to get those types of jobs that all of a sudden come out of nowhere.
Still working on prices for other jobs– two garages, a small addition, a total exterior remodel/update and a couple porches. And as the song says, “and the beat goes on, the beat goes on”. And as usual a contractors summer does not leave much breathing room. I may be on the hunt again for another carpenter. We will see on that.
Another new item. Our old faithful Ford Explorer gave it up a few months ago. It still runs but very rough. We have been told it could be as simple as a vacuum issue or as serious as a timing issue. I decided not to put any more investigation money into it. If you know of anyone that likes to wrench on cars, it’s a 1999 Explorer. Brand new transmission, body is in excellent shape for a '99, it has some issues with some lighting, door locks etc, but it is a '99. Send them our way if you know of anyone who may be interested.
The other new item is "new" to us. A 2006 Toyota 4 Runner. It seems funny, we bought a car with more miles on it then the Ford had, it is seven years newer, but we feel we are now driving in luxury! It has a nice ride and I hope it proves to be everything that Toyota’s are known for. Do you call it a sun roof or a moon roof? The Artist wants to know. I have a '93 Toyota pick-up that has 168,000 miles on it and the engine seems to be as good as the day it was new. I do need to do some other minor work on it which I now think I will. It was very difficult for the Artist to be without a vehicle for three months. But hey, it gave her the time to build the website!
Back to bidding.